A Nocturne Blue
by Queen Nightingale
Summary: He kissed her, quickly and quietly, as another firework went off – the exact opposite of what she had dreamed of as a child – but she was in love, and the quiet confession of a lip on a lip was all she needed as proof. JPLE One-shot.


**A NOCTURNE BLUE**

Author: Queen Nightingale

Rating: M

Pairing: JPLE

* * *

><p>"[T]ease apart the threads [of the natural world] and the pattern vanishes.<br>The design is in how the cloth-maker arranges the threads: this way and that, as fashion dictates.  
>[...] To say something is meaningful is to say that that is how we arrange it so;<br>how we comprehend it to be, and what is comprehended by you or I may not be by a cat, for example.  
>If a tree falls in a park and there is no-one to hand, it is silent and invisible and nameless.<br>And if we were to vanish, there would be no tree at all;  
>any meaning would vanish along with us."<p>

- William Fossett

* * *

><p>She wanted to paint him a nocturne blue. Colour the sky fragile, stunning – she wanted to play him like those ragtime tunes, make his moans erupt like harmonies, his lungs burst into flames.<p>

Why? She asked herself that question each day, looking in the mirror at the freckles spangled like stars up her cheekbones. She asked herself that question when she lay in bed at Hogwarts, painting glow in the dark stars with the 'lumos' from her wand. She asked herself that question when she was in between sleep and awake, that magical spot where Peter Pan had lured her when she was a child – too young to know that it wasn't pixie dust that made her levitate.

But it didn't matter why, or how, or who ... or when or what or fuck who gives a shit. Because at the end of the day yes, he was Potter – the boy who in first year charmed himself purple by accident; Potter, the boy who chased her with eyes the size of the moon; Potter, the brat who bullied Severus; Potter, the teenager who smirked and stared too long at her pale skin – he was Potter, and that was what made it so daring, so indie, so fantastically hip.

When they were both 17, it was the summer of 1987. She was obsessed with Guns N' Roses – and they were both free, both orphans, both set wild and loose in a world that seemed doomed from the outset. Why not run away together?

* * *

><p>"Where are we going?"<p>

She swivelled around in the dark, both of them crouched in the bushes beside the tracks. A halo around her body outlined the setting sun, and he watched, enraptured, as she slowly smiled that wide, toothy grin, then put her small finger up to his lips.

"The train," she said breathily, her heart ready to explode out of her chest. She searched his eyes and grinned even bigger, "We're really doing this."

"If we get caught," James said, hesitating a bit, tousling his hair as his eyes shifted towards their luggage floating behind them, "We'll be thrown in - "

"James," she said, grabbing his hand and kissing it, the boy looking at her with wide eyes behind his glasses, "James, I fucking love you. We're done thinking. No responsibilities. Freedom."

She pressed her hand to his cheek and he just watched her, both their eyes connecting with fear and exhilaration.

"Freedom," he said, with a wild grin, "To freedom, then."

With a sudden loud blast the track erupted into a chaos of moving train and chugging smoke, Lily getting up and running, James chasing after her, two crazy teenagers hunting the sun on wheels.

"Go go go go!" he yelled, watching her head fall forward, her red hair exploding behind her as they both sprinted to keep up. To take off.

With a shriek she grabbed the ladder on the side of the car, James still running beside her.

"James!" she screamed, pulling herself up the ladder, "Get on!"

With a grunt he grabbed the yellow metal and hoisted himself onto the side, feeling the vibrations as the train started to pick up speed. He watched from below as Lily quickly alohamora'd the car open, crawling in through the latch on the top, then she yelled "Accio luggage!"

Suddenly the luggage that they had left floating by the tracks went whizzing by James' head, nearly taking off his nose, and he heard a loud clatter as they fell into the boxcar. He quickly climbed up the rest of the ladder then swivelled into the car, jumping down with a loud thump.

Lily was standing looking at him, almost awestruck, her hair twisted and red and _oh-god-he-wanted-to-touch-it_, her eyes glimmering with hope.

"We're actually doing this!" she laughed, gesturing with her arms at the small, dusty boxcar they were standing in, crates off in the corner of it, "We're here, James!"

He laughed, his ears still ringing from the thud of the train, and then grabbed her, twisting her around in his arms so that she was squealing with joy.

"Let's make the most of it."

* * *

><p>They were dirty, scrawny kids, caught in that stage hovering on the brink of adulthood, but they were in love and thought they were invincible.<p>

On the bright, brilliantly cold nights when the train would slow down and chug along at that perfect speed, they would crawl onto the top of the boxcar and lie there, just painting their initials in the stars. They would talk – and talk and talk and talk – of where they thought Sirius was, rampaging around Ireland with that floating motorcycle of his – of how Remus' parents were far too controlling – and of Marlene, with her dark hair and hollow eyes.

They made out, too – frantically, all chapped lips and bad breath, lying on top of the train. And when it got cold, he'd let her wear his huge red hoodie, and it would clash horrendously with her hair, but he would lie beside her and nuzzle his nose into her dry cheek and kiss her with his eyes.

She was falling in love with him – she told him, on one rainy night, both of them huddled in the corner of the boxcar, their bones weary but still alive with that frantic flame of youth – and she wasn't scared. She wasn't looking at him, just smiling a weary grin out of the corner of her mouth – and she was speaking the words to the other side of the dark boxcar, but he kissed her head and she rested hers on his shoulder and their silence was the meaning of eternity.

They jumped from train to train, getting off at the far outposts of English culture, the small forgotten towns with populations of 1000, or 200, or 3. Lily bought combat boots at an old thrift shop, but they were too big for her, and when she walked around with her ripped shorts, huge plaid shirt and wild red hair, she looked like a crazy beautiful homeless Muggle girl, all bones and knees and elbows. James always tried to maintain a semblance of respectability, with his circular glasses, gawky limbs and ruffled hair, but by the end of the summer even his jeans got a bit mud stained and torn.

* * *

><p>"What do you mean you don't know what fireworks are?"<p>

They were lying there in the open field off some strange country road, with some Muggle teenagers that Lily had quickly befriended. It was close to 1 in the morning, and she was curled up in his side, the Muggles all a ways off starting to set up a display of cherrybombs.

"What, are they like exploding lights?" he asked curiously, looking down at her persimmon head resting on his chest. For the hundredth time that summer, he paused and thought with awe, twirling her hair around a finger – _mine, mine, mine_.

"Essentially," Lily replied, her voice sleepy and muffled in his chest. She drew her legs around his waist and wrapped her arms around his neck, "They're beautiful. Kind of like a wizarding duel."

James was silent, his hand dropping down to trace spiderwebs on her bare, white thigh. Unconsciously Lily shivered.

Suddenly a loud bang went off, startling James to nearly flinch. A bright red light exploded from where the Muggles were standing, soaring off to explode in a ball of white.

"Oh, that's just swell," James said, impressed, Lily laughing quietly at his high-class Brit attitude, "Fantastic."

"You're such a nerd, Potter," Lily said, sticking her lips up to his face in a mocking way, James starting to laugh and switching their positions so she was trapped under him, her large combat boots wrapped around his waist, her hair flung out like a red carpet against the green that they were sitting on.

He kissed her, quickly and quietly, as another firework went off – the exact opposite of what she had dreamed of as a child, watching those romantic comedies that Petunia loved – but she was _in love_, and the quiet confession of a lip on a lip was all she needed as proof.

* * *

><p>Of course, there were still bad days.<p>

Like when James insisted on transfiguring Muggle money and fooling the shopkeeper into selling them food, and when Lily found out she sat down and cried, because it was sickening to think of the idea of Azkaban if they were caught.

Then there was that time when she got drunk on Muggle whiskey, and James had to carry her back to the train tracks, and he held her hair as she vomited onto the dirt and stones under the bridge. And then she started weeping, because they were just two kids somewhere in the English wilderness, surrounded by graffiti and dirt and filth, and damnit, where was her fucking mother.

And then there was that horrible night when she lost her virginity, when they were _too_ painfully sober (which made it too _real_, too _raw_ and too _vulnerable_), and there was that rip and then that swell of agonizing pain because he was too large. And she lay there and tried to grit back the tears because she _loved _him, she told herself over and over again; but then he stopped and he was still inside of her (she could never get used to that feeling) and she started bawling and it was the most awkward, most embarrassing moment of her life. Because she was naked, body and soul, and she was terrified.

But she loved him – she truly loved him, not in a fairytale sort of way, but she was in love with his imperfections. The way that his hair was ruffled, not handsomely but from the wind. The way that his bottom lip curved slightly, and when he didn't shave tiny stubble popped up all over his cheeks. The way that his eyes had wrinkles at the corners when he smiled – the shape of his hands against hers.

She would die for this man, she told herself, glancing over at him one night in another one of their boxcars, James sleeping to her right, his arm sprawled out, his back pressed against hers – she would jump in front of a train, set herself on fire, do anything for him; and surprisingly enough, that knowledge didn't scare her.

* * *

><p>"What day is it today?" she asked him, plodding along behind him on one of the side country roads that they so favoured, James' invisibility cloak hiding their mound of luggage trailing behind them.<p>

James paused for a second, and looked back at her, his brow confused. She smiled and reached out, her hand delicately tracing the wrinkles on his forehead.

"No idea, why?"

"Well, we do have to go back to Hogwarts, you know," she chided him, James' face darkening slightly, "What's wrong?"

"I don't want to go back," he said petulantly, continuing forward, "Let's not."

For a second she thought about the idea, and then ignored it, the dangerous connotations of the word 'drop-out' already embedded in her mind.

"We've got to," she sighed, her mind trying to fit her and him back into the walls of her beloved school.

They were both silent for a few seconds, James stopping and dropping down by the side of the road, Lily following suit and crossing her legs beside him. She dropped her head against his shoulder, and he sighed.

"I fucking hate school," he muttered, his eyes downcast, his hand casually ripping up a clod of grass beside him, Lily's eyes closed as she rested her head against his chest, "We were both so fucked up in that place."

Suddenly a flash of Severus' face occurred before her eyes, and she winced and sat up, thinking about all the things that they left behind and all the people that she once and still did love.

"Can we promise to not go back to what we were?" James said, turning Lily's face towards his, with his large hands, "I hated that. I fucking hated chasing you around, I fucking hated the rejections, I fucking hated how you ignored me. Don't do that again."

She could feel her temper rising, but she glanced at his eyes and noticed the darkness behind them, and quelled the anger in her stomach. She sighed.

"I'm sorry, James. I wasn't ready for you then."

"I'm still not ready for you, Lily," James groaned, leaning back against the pavement. She gritted her teeth in aggravation and stayed silent, staring at the field ahead of them.

"Lily, you know I fucking love you," his deep voice came trailing up from where he was lying, and she froze for a second, "I fucking love you. Else I wouldn't be here, of course – and I'm telling you this because I don't want to go back to that life where you weren't sure that you loved me. Because you do. And I'm telling you this now."

She scowled.

"You're telling me that I love you? Really? That's rich."

They were silent for a couple more seconds, before Lily rolled her eyes and turned to him, suddenly straddling him by his waist and staring down into his eyes.

"You're so stupid, have I ever told you that?"

"And you fucking love me."

She paused, looking down into his eyes, which were at once open and guarded.

"James Potter, I, Lily Evans, am madly, passionately, stupidly in love with everything that is wrong with you. I don't know why – I can't even believe that we're here – and I love every goddamn moment that I have spent with you this summer because I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you."

He suddenly reached up and pulled her down to him, her back making that perfect arch against his ribcage, and he was kissing her, and his lips were moving in that pattern that was just _James James James_ and she was smiling against his onslaught.

"I'm going to die for you, Lily Evans," he said, letting go of her and staring up at her, her red hair surrounding both of them, "I have no doubt that you will be the death of me."

She laughed and leaned down and kissed his cheek, James grabbing her, the two barely-there adults lying in the middle of the road.

"Accio luggage," James whispered, and Lily watched as he grabbed what seemed to be nothing out of the air, the invisibility cloak trickling off of their belongings.

Lily sighed, nestling closer into him.

"You ready to return to reality?" James asked quietly, the two of them still against the road, James' wand out and clutched in his hand, Lily around his neck, their luggage in his other hand.

"Of course not."

She looked up at him and smiled a wry, nervous grin, and he kissed the top of her head, both of them still horizontal on the road. Then suddenly, without a sound, he closed his eyes and concentrated on apparating, and then they disappeared.

Nobody would know about that summer except for them. Nobody would remember the hundreds of times that they chased trains, Lily always first, James always keeping back and making sure that they got on, both of them screaming and laughing and ablaze. Nobody would remember the drunken nights spent under the moon – and nobody would remember the brutal hangovers, James puking up blood into that one clear stream when they were lost in a forest. Nobody would remember him caressing her hair when she was sleeping. Nobody would remember his hands trailing up her pale, pale white thighs – his eyes lapping up the freckles spread out like diamonds across her face. Nobody would remember her shaking fists when he fingered her that first night in the boxcar. Nobody would remember the cold, the brutally cold nights when they shivered together and cursed the very idea of running away from life, from magic, from disease. Nobody would remember the exact feeling of their hands locking together, his leading, hers completing.

But they existed goddammit, and wasn't that memory enough?

* * *

><p>We lie beneath the stars at night<br>Our hands gripping each other tight  
>You keep my secrets hope to die<br>Promises, swear them to the sky

The bittersweet between my teeth  
>Trying to find the in-betweens<br>Fall back in love eventually  
>Yeah yeah yeah yeah<p>

- Young Blood, by The Naked and Famous


End file.
